


I’m On Fire

by sinatratheghost



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Body Image, Eating Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 13:53:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinatratheghost/pseuds/sinatratheghost
Summary: Gerard will never know when this vicious cycle will end.  If he will ever not be afraid of closing his eyes for too long, or looking at himself.  Or lying.  Or staring at the roof of his bunk, keeping his emotions quiet yet they feel like a shaken-up two liter bottle of soda, released when not expected.





	I’m On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> this is a story i am writing in the aftermath of a panic attack. be cautious when reading this story too, as there’s mentions of an eating disorder throughout and i have a feeling it will be very triggering. please stay safe. don’t do this.

He felt like he was on fire. 

His face was on fire.

His body was on fire.

He was breathing so, so hard, he couldn’t fucking keep it in because all he could see was a body in the darkness of his hands covering his eyes.

Looking inflated, gigantic, too fat to be considered human, too fucking big to be respected.

That is how he was. So he did not respect himself.

His hands shook and his bottom lip trembled, tears leaking out of his eyes as music came through his headphones to mask how loud he was probably being, too afraid to really care about anything.

It was too dark. Too fucking dark. 

He couldn’t close his eyes. He didn’t want to see it again.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He slowly peeled his hands off his face, staring them for not a second before they were back, clutching at his forehead and cheek and some hair. It was too hot. Too hot, too hot, too hot, he was on fire, his skin was on fire and he couldn’t stop seeing that white image. 

Distorted and terrifying, too big too big too big, too fucking big to be loved as someone never had a fucking heart big enough to fit Gerard in, a-fucking-pparently.

But he didn’t want to be loved.  
He didn’t deserve to be loved.  
He didn’t think he deserves to be respected,  
taken care of,  
treated like a human being.

He doesn’t look like one. It’s all too fucking squishy to see a human skeleton under all this fat and he was eager to show everyone he was a human under all of this.

Please see.

Please, please see me.

See that I can be beautiful too.

He flipped his body around to grip one of many pillows and had a fucking temper-tantrum about how he was so fucking fat, so fucking fat. 

He felt pathetic. 

And that he was.

Meanwhile, everyone, meaning the band, were all playing video games and drinking beer and shoving chips into their mouth without a care in the world.

Two at a time.

You take 5 more dips into that bag, thats 140 calories, down the hatch, and you better believe Gerard was not down with that.

They were laughing, they were happy, they were relaxed and didn’t have a care in the world about how many calories they were consuming, not counting each chip or taking tiny chipmunk bites of each, either. 

Gerard didn’t know how that felt. He didn’t. He loved this, though. He was in control, was being the right usage, as he didn’t feel in control now. 

He had so, so many chips, so many chips for breakfast. He couldn’t control it. He didn’t have a care in the world then, also. 

All Gerard put for the bus grocery list every few weeks or so were so many fucking vegetables and those foreign ‘zero-calorie’ noodles that sometimes he was too scared to eat. 

He loved the feeling of water filling up an empty stomach, and he loved the feeling of passing out after a show, no dinner, no nothing, because his body was so exhausted.

He didn’t know when to stop, he didn’t want to stop, and he wouldn’t stop until he saw bone.

He wouldn’t allow himself to do anything fun or look nice until he hit his goal weight, and if he overate he would punish himself by making himself drink too much fucking plain green tea, which makes his stomach churn whenever he thinks about it, or he’d make himself walk around the venue that night, or do exercises in the back lounge in the middle of the night, or he wouldn’t talk to anyone, he wouldn’t let himself, because no one wants to talk to ugly people.

His clothes started smelling even more like coffee, because believe it or not, you can’t smell like vegetables, and sometimes music was his only reason to get out of bed in the afternoon. (Because Mikey would force him out because they had a show that day.)

He caught himself looking at too many skinny people, even his own friends, seeing how much they ate and how their legs looked when they sat down, and how their collarbones jut out even without moving their shoulders a certain way. He looked at anyone and everyone, and he became so infuriated and frustrated with himself because nothing was working, stuck on this fucking.. can of a vehicle.

 

He found himself staring at his hands too much, wrapping his fingers around his wrist too much, looking at his jawline from a certain angle in the mirror because he just couldn’t have a double chin.

He knew how many calories were in Frank’s Boca Burgers, and how many are in two tablespoons of his spaghetti sauce, and how mad he got at one of the venues because they got them fucking /granola/, because it was so fucking calorie-dense and he had to mask that real anger by saying, “Who the fuck gives someone /granola/ as a gift?” and having the guys laugh along with him.

He kept a scale in his suitcase no matter what, and even kept it in a bag he carried in venues whenever they have shows, stuffed next to his laptop and sketchbook.

He scrolls through Tumblr too much, and ‘accidentally likes’ a picture of a person with protruding bones and too-thin everything. A hundred times. With different pictures. And different accounts. And he doesn’t think anyone will see, really. No one will care. It’s all fine.

And when Mikey tells him to eat something, he laughs and says “Why don’t you?” And when Frank tells him to eat something, he makes a salad drizzled with some mustard and covered in colorful vegetables, because it’s barely any calories, and those fucking croutons you threw in my salad look bad as fuck, let me enjoy my 5 calorie meal, fuckface. 

And when he’s pictured eating maybe a giant slice of pizza for a wicked cool experience Instagram post, he ate two bites and gave up because he didn’t know the calories and he really didn’t feel like purging that night. Please let me go home.

And when he steps on the scale and he’s four pounds lighter than last week’s weigh in, he punches a door because it just. can’t. be. 

And when he looks down at Frank’s thighs next to his and sees they’re smaller, he gets up and moves somewhere else.

And when he feels dizzy on stage he lets the crowd take over, getting down on his knees to belt out the last screaming part, falling down with his feet under him, breathing too shallowly, too odd.

And when he passes out after a show, before he makes it to his bunk, you’ll call the ambulance.

And when he gets pulled onto a stretcher and hauled off the bus, all he’d be worrying about is if they’re okay after getting his fatass off the ground, but he can’t worry about anything, because he moved too fast, and everything got too bright for a second, and then it was lights out.

And when you see him on a hospital bed, needles stuck into his veins and a feeding tube going through his nose, you can’t help but feel a piece of your heart falling to the floor, because he was sufferring, and you were too fucking selfish to help.

He didn’t want help.  
He didn’t deserve help.  
And when he wakes up, and panics,  
don’t yell at him.  
God, please don’t be mad at him.  
He’ll only blame everything on himself.  
And the calm rise-and-fall of his chest will turn into frantic, loud, grabbing at his face and sobbing as loud as he wants.

He’ll feel too hot.  
He’ll feel like his life is burning, and ashes are starting to form,  
and you’ll never know how to tell him that he’ll be okay, because his mind will always be louder than you.


End file.
